The present invention relates to a wearable vibration device, and more particularly, but not exclusively to a wearable signal driven vibration device.
One field in which low frequency signals form a part of a user experience is personal media playing.
Among widely used personal media playing systems are MP3 players, portable DVD players, as well as smart cellular telephones (such as Apple™ iPhone or Samsung™ Galaxy S) that can store and reproduce recorded music or movies.
Current personal media playing systems provide stereo sound to users via conventional earphones and/or small speakers.
While the earphones and speakers may provide suitable sound, they do not provide a realistic sensory experience, as felt in a night club, or in a theater during a live performance by a big orchestra or a rock band.
The earphones and speakers fail to provide a realistic enough sensory experience, since the earphones and speakers are limited to sound felt by only one sensory channel, namely, the ears.
Personal media playing systems such as consumer electronic devices and computers require accurate reproduction of sound across a spectrum of audible frequencies, typically from about 20 Hz to about 20 KHz.
Typically, this frequency spectrum is divided up, into several bands or groups of frequencies with each band being handled by a specific device that is well suited to reproduce it accurately.
For example, the high frequency sound above 2,000 Hz may be given to a tweeter, while the frequencies from 200 Hz up to 2,000 Hz may be transmitted by a midrange speaker.
Traditionally, lower frequencies are taken over by subwoofers.
Traditional subwoofers are bulky devices that contain relatively large and heavy cones, placed into relatively big acoustic cabinets that require a powerful amplifier to drive them adequately. This is because the declining sensitivity of the human ear in the low frequency range, the attenuating nature of air, and the very long wavelengths of the sound radiating at low frequencies, require the subwoofer to match the intensity of sound provided by other speakers in the rest of the audible spectrum.
However, traditional subwoofers are too bulky and cumbersome for personal and mobile media playing systems such as mobile MP3 players, portable DVD players, and smart cellular telephones.
Other fields in which low frequency signals play an important role, and in which subwoofers have been used, are simulation and virtual reality.
Some rarely used currently available alternatives to subwoofers transmit low-frequency vibrations into various surfaces (say a surface of a cinema theater seat) so that the vibrations can be felt by people. The currently available alternatives have a bulky and cumbersome stationary design, and do not fit into a personal and mobile media playing system.